The Three Advantages
- Article 6 of 16
- LinuxUser & Developer, October 2005
Understanding the open source business model. In the second of a series of articles on the changing market for open source software, Rob Buckley looks at the benefits that customers are looking for when they choose an open source solution
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Marcel Jansen, CTO of Dutch hosting and ASP firm, ASP4ALL, started providing Red Hat Linux servers in 2000, because “there’s a lot of easy solutions which are very well supported on the Internet.” Technologically, it also gave the company greater performance and more control over the processors in each server. Now, more and more clients are developing Red Hat-specific software themselves, making Red Hat the company’s default system for clients.
Internally, however, the company uses Windows and other proprietary software for the same practical reasons it uses Red Hat externally. “Unless a move to open source is supported by a whole company, it’s not going to work. If you asked most of our technicians if they wanted to make the switch, they’d say, ‘Fine. Tomorrow?’ But the rest of the company uses financial and CRM packages that work better in Windows.”
Beyond “The Three Advantages”, most open source customers are looking to get from open source companies the same thing they’d expect of other companies.
Gregory Kris, commercial director of web consultancy fresh enterprise, says the main reason his company uses open source software is the bottom line. “I have a religious love of keeping costs down.” While fresh enterprise uses Microsoft products internally, it has outsourced its development and hosting work to open source developer NeoWorks. While NeoWorks didn’t produce the lowest tender for the company’s business, it provided a level of service fresh enterprise needed as it expanded. “There are lots of people able to work with open source, but you don’t get the same expertise as with a company working with open source for a number of years, with a number of people with different competencies.” It was this that won NeoWorks the contract, and so far, service has been “absolutely excellent”.
By contrast, some customers of open source software, particularly those from the continent, do embrace the open source mentality. Svein Skarstein, IT director of Storm weather centre in Norway, tries to use open source wherever possible. “I’m very pro open source, but I can’t let me personal feelings get in the way. I do a fair evaluation of all the products before I choose, but open source usually wins because of costs, flexibility and our own knowledge of open source.” Storm uses Linux, MySQL and the Scali high performance Linux clustering software.
The pro open source stance is often prevalent in local and central government. Christian Ronchi of Arpa Piemonte in Italy says that the authority picked Red Hat for its servers because of the high availability, flexibility and performance needed for weather forecasting at the forthcoming 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin. But “as a public authority, we need to be more politically correct and provide benefit for the community from open source”.
Red Hat’s transformation into a regular company promoting its products, rather than a standard bearer for open source, has put off some potential customers, however. Lievan Hermans, head of ICT for Watford Borough Council, has spent the last three years helping to rescue the “worst performing authority” in England from disaster. He’s been recentralising and outsourcing after a move from mainframes to decentralised Windows servers made management almost impossible. Where possible, he tries to use open source software, and not just because of the lack of licence costs: “There’s some community thinking in it. What we develop, others can use. Sharing takes you to a higher level of energy, if you have it.”
When deciding on which web content management system to use, Hermans had two choices, both from open source companies: Red Hat with its own system, or the Runtime Collective with the APLAWS content management system for local government. Red Hat’s bid was twice Runtime’s, but that wasn’t the only reason Hermans went with Runtime. “Runtime, although they work commercially, have more idealism. It’s not so that if you ask them for something, they pull out their order book, which is what we had from all the other companies: Red Hat were very much the guys in the striped suits.”
When companies can’t get “The Three Advantages” they’re looking for from open source, they’ll turn to proprietary vendors, no matter how keen they are on open source in theory. And they seem, in general, quite happy about it. George Nursey, IT manager for logistics company Task Force, would dearly love to deploy Linux and open source software in his company. He’s bought security appliances from Astaro, since “for the money, you can’t beat Astaro. It’s secure and I know I don’t have to touch it very often. But that’s not the reliability I get from Microsoft technology: it’s like looking after a herd of children, sometimes.”
Yet despite Nursey wanting to “praise Linux up”, Task Force is an entirely Microsoft-based organisation. “It isn’t a base operating system that runs a business. It’s the apps on top.” He’s been unable to find open source products that match the Windows-based logistics apps he uses. While he could use bespoke software, that would make it as expensive as the Microsoft option, he says. Ultimately, for a medium-sized company such as Task Force, it’s easier to go the Microsoft route, he says. “I’ve got to be pragmatic”.
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